Volunteers: a word of caution

I see a lot of talk on this site about volunteers going over to Haiti. Can I suggest that everybody who is considering to volunteer, to run a volunteer project, or to facilitate volunteers (e.g. by providing transport) first read this excellent post by Saundra Schimmelpfennig on her blog 'Good Interntions Are Not Enough'. Sobering and very cogent thoughts.

I haven't come across any. It seems to be an either/or thing: sites are either sober, critical and realistic about the issues around volunteering but offer no volunteering propositions themselves; or they do offer volunteering opportunities but are insufficiently clear and self-critical about the issues.

In fact, setting up such a site might be an interesting idea, not only for Haiti.

My advice that I give to people that want to volunteer is to wait about 5 months and then try to find a local or community based aid organization that needs help. However, this will NOT be working in the villages - their own local staff will be doing that. What they need help with are office related tasks because they will have expanded very quickly and suddenly were forced to work much more with international organizations.
Local organizations generally need help creating a website, translating it into English, applying for grants, teaching their staff how to use computers, setting up email accounts, setting up an evaluation system for their projects, and all sorts of other backroom work.
However, there's no guarantee that you'll find an organization that wants your help. So you'll be taking a chance going down there.
Hope that helps.

Two attempts to direct volunteer work were tried in Thailand after the tsunami. One was an online network where groups could post their needs and then people could post what they had to offer, be it goods, vehicles or volunteers. That one never took off, it doesn't work if no one knows about it. With today's technology it might work better.

On the ground a volunteer center was established to try to give some guidance and form to the huge number of volunteers streaming into the area. At first they tried to match up volunteers with local organizations, but many people complained of feeling isolated if they weren't around the mass of other foreign volunteers. Also those in the far reaching areas often went "rogue". There was no way to ensure that the volunteers being matched to the organization were quality volunteers and no way to reel them in if things went wrong. In the end the center started leading their own projects, but no one had any real international development experience, so they made all the classic mistakes of any start up aid organization. They essentially just did construction work and teaching English because that is the easiest way to employ random unskilled volunteers. They also ended up having to deal with dissatisfied volunteers who didn't get the experience they were hoping for. So I think it's best to avoid doing this type of system again.

My suggestion would be try the database idea again. A couple of volunteers could make this their work. If the database could be made bilingual that would be even better. The volunteers could find the local organizations, explain what they're doing and do a quick evaluation of them to make sure they were doing quality projects. I'd be willing to help with this if needed. Next help them enter in their needs into the system for the first time. Volunteers could then submit their resume to the organization and the organization would be responsible for sorting through the resumes and choosing the candidates they're interested in. Google translate could be used to translate all resume's, knowing that it's an imperfect translation.

The organizations themselves should make all the decisions as they're the ones that have to live with the consequences. Also, it keeps everything between the volunteer and the organization so volunteer expectations are kept in check.

A secondary bonus of someone setting up this system is that a complementary donation site could be set up as it would require the same information. An assurance that there's been some vetting of a local organization and their website donation page. This would help those people that want to give to a local organization but don't know of any.

Anyway, that's my experience on this issue. I'm happy to provide guidance to anyone willing to take the lead on it.

Great idea! What would be required to set up a DB with HR platform? Not sure Ning supports this type of feature. Other options could be as simple as creating a Google Doc. If you are willing to get started, we can point to your doc and invite other volunteers to contribute.

This is pretty good advice. My first instinct when the EQ hit was to go there as soon as possible. It was mostly out of a desire to find my family and make sure they were OK, part me wanting get my hands dirty helping all the people who were hurt and hungry and thirsty, and maybe a little bit out of some perverse journalistic impulse that compels me to run towards destruction and danger instead of away from it. But after reading one of these posts by Saundra Schimmelpfennig and seeing various Tweets from Haitians watching befuddled foreigners, I really stopped to consider the point that supporting people not accustomed to third world living would be a huge imposition for people who need to focus on supporting themselves.

When I was in Haiti this summer, I broke out in hives and got some kind of fever and felt pretty bad about it that my family had to take care of me. It's a different world over there, one that most Americans aren't accustomed to. So yes, if you are set on going there, it's important to be aware of what you're getting into and make sure you have your own infrastructure to support yourself. There are lots of ways to help from home!

I am a volunteer who actually waits to get dispatched by the NGOs with whom I volunteer.

I went to Santo Domingo 18 January and from there to Port-au-Prince January 20. It was supposed to be PAP an the 18th but I was drafted by the UN for a couple of days.

When I was out of food and water (which I had brought) and my job was done I left. That simple. It's so crazy in a disaster so many well meaning people just show up. They take up scarce resources and consume time that should be spent addressing the immediate need.

Give money; make contact and develop relationships with providers; get dispatched and do the job; go home and pray for everyone.

Rick, great insight. Can you write up a blog post describing your experience in more detail? Would love to hear more. Also we're organizing a group to build a volunteers database tracking skills and opportunities to deploy them, your experience would be very valuable there.

About

The contents of this site are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. That means you're free to republish, repurpose or reuse anything here for any noncommercial purpose, as long as you credit the author or creator who posted it here.

If you have questions about the site or contributing to Haiti Rewired, please contact Arikia Millikan.